This beautiful guidebook is the best
book on the market for identifying the common coral-reef fishes and
corals of KwaZulu-Natal and Mozambique. Intended for use by divers
and snorkellers, the book includes excellent colour photos of some 243
fish species that are often seen on the reefs of this region. The
attractive layout comprises a plate of six photographs with a facing page
of text that gives information on the family and species represented in
the photos. The English name and scientific name are given
for each species, but it would have also been useful to give the name of
the author and date for each species in the blank space after each species
name. The author and date of species names may be necessary for finding
additional information about a particular species.

The text for most species is very
brief and includes the maximum size for the species, a colour description
or diagnostic colour features, comments on habitat and depth range, food,
whether the species occurs singly or in shoals, and occasionally some remarks
on behaviour. The absence of distributional information for most
species is unfortunate, particularly as this is important for fish identification,
and on many pages there is plenty of space that could have been used for
this information.For some fishes that show marked
sexual dichromatism (sexes coloured differently) there are photos of both
sexes, and the juvenile and adult colour patterns are illustrated for some
species that exhibit colour changes with growth.

A couple of minor criticisms: In
the Introduction (page 10), it is stated that raggedtooth sharks “retain
the embryos in egg sacs in the bodies until the young are born alive”.
It is true that raggies are viviparous (give birth), but the developing
pups are retained in the oviducts (or uterus) – not “egg sacs” – until
ready for birth.

The drawings illustrating the external
features of fishes and the pictorial guide to families are inferior.
The Zambezi shark is missing its second dorsal fin. The drawings
of the coachman and Moorish idol are so diagrammatic that they are misleading
(the Moorish idol looks like a boxfish [ostraciid] with long fins). The
goldie seems to have swapped pectoral fins with a coelacanth!

A few minor
corrections and recent name changes:

The photo of the “redspot (pink ear)
emperor, Lethrinus lentjan” is actually the spotcheek emperor, Lethrinus
rubrioperculatus Sato 1978; L. lentjan has a marginal red stripe
on the gill cover (rather than a red spot), and it usually has a red streak
on the base of the pectoral fin.

The photo of the orbicular batfish,
Platax
orbicularis, is the longfin batfish, Platax teira (Forsskål,
1775); the orbicular batfish does not have the black blotch on the belly
at the bottom of the dark bar behind the head.

Adults of both moonies (Monodactylus
argenteus and M. falciformis) may have the anterior lobes
of the dorsal and anal fins dusky. For the dusky sweeper, it is the
base of the anal fin that is dark, not the “margin” of the fin.

The photo of the “blue puller, Chromis
viridis” appears to be the black-axil Chromis (C.atripectoralis
Welander & Schultz, 1951), as the inner side of the pectoral fin base
is black, the diagnostic feature distinguishing atripectoralis
(below left) from the very similar viridis (below right).

The comment on p. 74 that the juveniles
and females of the bluespotted tamarin (Anampses caeruleopunctatus)
often “appear to have a broad pale yellow band at the base of tail” is
probably based on sightings of the yellowband tamarin, Anampses
melanurus Bleeker, 1857.

The African coris (formerly Coris gaimard africana is
now Coris cuvieri (Bennett, 1831). Coris gaimard occurs
in the eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean. The photo of the “horned blenny,
Parablennius
cornutus”, is actually the horned rockskipper, Antennablennius bifilum
(Günther 1861).The valid name for the whitespotted
goby, Bathygobius albopunctatus, is Bathygobius coalitus
(Bennett 1831).The above criticisms are minor blemishes
on an excellent book. The pictures speak for themselves and range
from excellent to beautiful. Well done Dennis!